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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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Apr 11, 2018 - 01:57pm PT
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you may be right BJ
but the press is reporting that Donald had Stormy call a "girlfriend" to ask her to come over for a three way
and she declined
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 11, 2018 - 03:03pm PT
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USS Donald Cook brings Tomahawk missiles next to Russian base in Syria's Tartus
7 hours ago: Satellite photos of Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria show all 11 Russian naval warships have left Syria. Perhaps to avoid being sitting ducks as rhetoric between Trump and Russia escalates.
A shooting war with the Russians in the Mediterranean - what could possibly go wrong?
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Apr 11, 2018 - 03:30pm PT
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Was this posted yet?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-legacy-trump_us_5ace4180e4b0648767761deb?o8
In many ways, that should be how Ryan is remembered: Confidently claiming that what he’s doing, or the things Republicans have accomplished, are major feats, that he’s a serious policy thinker even when his actions are nakedly political, and that he’s being honest and forthright when he’s being anything but.
Lyin Ryan. How many 14ers?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 11, 2018 - 07:30pm PT
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About half of the GOP dolts who ran for President in 2016 claim to admire Ayn Rand, whose work Gore Vidal said was "almost perfect in its immorality".
The common dementhesis in Rand's novels is that we would all be better off in a law-of-the-jungle world. The strong would prevail, and the weak would die, leaving even more for the strong. She viewed the human race the way a scientist would view bacteria in a petri dish. She was BSC, and if alive would fit right in with Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and the rest of the Fox News idiots.
I believe Trump also admires Rand. He certainly behaves as if he's one of the characters in her books, with little or no regard for the welfare of others outside his immediate family. He even screws his friends to get ahead. Trump is going to screw Michael Cohen in an attempt to save his own ass. It won't work.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California, now Ireland
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Apr 12, 2018 - 10:57am PT
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Call me stupid, I do when I look in the mirror, but okay outside of Bachelor of Science, what does BSC mean? I looked it up, such as at internet slang.com, and could not find what it means.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California, now Ireland
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Apr 12, 2018 - 12:14pm PT
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Thanks, Treez, I should have figured that out.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 12, 2018 - 12:42pm PT
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If there is a plan for Syria, even a vague one that is semi-cogent, I’d love to hear it.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 12, 2018 - 01:17pm PT
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Trump's plan for Syria is to reflexively respond to whatever immediate stimulus his cerebral ganglion receives.
A) Trump will Have his VA doctor guy tap his patellar tendon with a small rubber mallet.
B) If his leg jerks forward, Trump will tweet-storm a bunch of bellicose nonsense that contradicts whatever he tweeted the day before.
C) If his leg doesn't jerk forward, he'll tweet-storm a bunch of pacifist nonsense that contradicts whatever he tweeted the day before.
D) When asked about evidence about who gassed whom in Syria, Trump will respond, NO COLLUSION.
E) When asked about his threat to send missiles into Syria, Trump will respond, NO COLLUSION.
F) When asked if he still intends to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, Trump will respond, NO COLLUSION.
Trump is rapidly becoming paralyzed from the neck up. The fury and the foam are taking over, and he can't think of anything except how to plan his evasion from the rapidly-approaching reality of the Mueller investigation.
At this point, Trump is looking under sofas and rugs in the Oval Office, trying to find an escape hatch that Steve Bannon told him was installed by Richard Nixon.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
I see your point. But, Atlas Shrugged is almost as long as War and Peace and is complex, and self-contradictory. For example, Ayn Rand presents John Galt as the quintessential ubermensch, but he's a dishwashing wastrel who squanders his skills and abilities out of spite.
The part that the GOP seems to have found most useful for their own agenda, is the idea that a society shouldn't compel winners to share with losers. That Darwinian viewpoint ignores the fact that some "losers" have mental issues, or other reasons for not being "winners".
The Ayn Rand order of things would have a master hunter of a primitive tribe bringing back a huge dead animal, and then jealously guarding it in his hut, and not sharing it with the rest of the group. Even when it begins to rot and decay, he refuses to be a "communist" by sharing. He would rather have it go to waste, on his own terms, than share.
Ayn Rand would have cheered George Hearst when he flooded a productive gold mine, rather than allow his workers to unionize. And she would have cheered the German navy for scuttling their captured fleet in Scapa Flow, rather than abide by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
Ayn Rand's protagonists are primarily sociopaths. The dominant males in at least two of her books are depicted as "honorable" rapists. Ayn Rand was BSC.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
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Apr 12, 2018 - 01:21pm PT
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About half of the GOP dolts who ran for President in 2016 claim to admire Ayn Rand, whose work Gore Vidal said was "almost perfect in its immorality".
Tom, I have always thought the Republicans hijacked a very simple idea in Rand's books and turned them into something they aren't. Couldn't Progressives also have hijacked Rand? The Republicans are so status quo but Atlas Shrugged is actually progressive, like in promoting Reardon Steel as opposed to establishment status quo products. What the republicans want to do with the environment and halting progress toward cleaner energy sources in very anti Atlas Shrugged - it is promoting the old boy network Rand was staunchly against.
It could also be said ( possibly ) that the republicans of that era may have been different than the slime republicans of today.
Oh, and Tom, I'm really afraid Trump is so dirty they may be able to get him to do whatever 'they' want. But, you know, They are quite capable of doing what they want, with or without that Freak.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Tom, I read Atlas in my early 20s and found it inspiring. I did not see much of the selfishness you ascribe, but a selfishness that compels a person to follow their heart and not let the status quo hold them back. I think it is the republicans that have colored the book with Communism. I recall that she had more of a disdain for bureaucracies in general, rather than Communism per se.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 12, 2018 - 01:43pm PT
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Tom, with respect to trump’s thoughts on Syria, I think you summed it up nicely.
In fairness, there really isn’t a good plan to be had. But nonetheless, what is he going to do? He’s all over the place. Shooting a few missiles in response to a chemical attack, which seems possible, would result in good feedback on Fox and Friends, but would accomplish nothing. (Did it accomplish anything last time?)
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
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Apr 12, 2018 - 01:51pm PT
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I don't think Trump wants to attack Syria. THEY do. It was clear he didn't want or like THEM on day one. In a way he's proving what a joke the modern presidency is. The exception is Cheney of course. Now that guy was president!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Tom, I read Atlas in my early 20s and found it inspiring. I did not see much of the selfishness you ascribe, but a selfishness that compels a person to follow their heart and not let the status quo hold them back. THAT idea can be stolen by anyone. I think it is the republicans that have colored the book with Communism. I recall that she had more of a disdain for bureaucracies in general, rather than Communism per se.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 12, 2018 - 02:28pm PT
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Ayn Rand was an anti-bureaucracy, anti-government anarchist. Her idea was that anybody should do whatever they want, and an individual's internal morality mechanism was superior to any set of laws, regulations, taxes or other interference in a person's hedonistic pursuit of happiness (notice the climbing reference there).
Alan Greenspan was a die-hard believer in Ayn Rand's BSC social dementheses. He championed the "magic hand of the free market" and was vehemently opposed to any type of regulation of the derivatives markets during the early 2000s.
We know how that one turned out, in reality, as opposed to within an alternative, delusional pseudo-reality based on false theses.
Deregulated free enterprise is great, for those who benefit from it. The rest of society suffers, whether from predatory banking fees, a polluted environment, or insider-trading stock fraud schemes.
Deregulation = lawlessness
People who are addicted to money can't be trusted to regulate themselves, any more than methamphetamine addicts can be trusted to regulate themselves.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 12, 2018 - 02:39pm PT
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One of Trump's first actions as President was to remove America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he excoriated as being a "terrible deal" for the U.S. At the time, it was widely reported that leaving the TPP would allow China to gain economic power at the expense of the U.S.
Now Trump wants to enter into a trade agreement with other nations, in an effort to counter China's moves to increase their economic power at the expense of the U.S.
It's called the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Apparently, the VA doctor guy poked the bottom of Trump's foot with the point of his pen, and the President had a knee-jerk reaction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/politics/trump-trans-pacific-partnership.html
Trump is engaging in extemporaneous improvisational governance. He is like a jazz musician feeling his way through a freeform composition, trying this, then that, then something else entirely different, ignoring the usual rules in search of a higher state of creative expression.
The problem with that jazzy leadership style is that Trump can't play for sh#t.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Apr 12, 2018 - 03:47pm PT
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Rand had a very low opinion of leeches
The leeches run this country.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Apr 12, 2018 - 04:29pm PT
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So maybe that Obama guy was not so stupid
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Bruce Morris
Trad climber
Soulsbyville, California
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Apr 12, 2018 - 04:39pm PT
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I heard this morning that Cohen intends to take the 5th Amendment. Does that mean that each time the DOJ and the FBI asks Cohen about an item they have uncovered in his office, he'll take the 5th in response? That really wouldn't look good unless his intention to take the 5th is merely preparation for a plea bargaining agreement between Cohen and the DOJ?
Awaiting further developments.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 12, 2018 - 04:43pm PT
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What if he is asked about hush money payments to Bill Cosby?
We’ve learned moments ago, within the last two hours, that Michael Cohen will be filing a motion tomorrow in our case, an emergency motion, to stay — or temporarily stop — our case,” Avenatti said. “And the grounds for that motion are going to be that it is his intention to plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination if our case goes forward, in light of potential criminal jeopardy that he finds himself in.”
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 12, 2018 - 04:49pm PT
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Don't gotta show you no stinkin' missiles
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Apr 12, 2018 - 04:59pm PT
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Israel’s “Safe Zone” Is Creeping Farther Into Syria
A safe zone is all fine and dandy, but did anyone bother to set up a safe word?
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 12, 2018 - 05:12pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Trump will get as much serenity by yelling, "COVFEFE" as Seinfeld's father did by yelling, "SERENITY NOW!"
Cohen's gambit, in moving to stay the civil Stormy Daniels case, is to avoid a jury from equating his Fifth Amendment silence with guilt. In a criminal case, the jury can't do that. But, in a civil case the burden of proof is lower, and a lawyer who lawyers up would be looking pretty shady.
Cohen is just delaying the Stormy Daniels case. He was the one who wanted it heard in the first place. Then, he looked at his cards again, and realized that two jokers don't add up to jack squat in the current game.
The two jokers are Trump and Cohen.
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